GETTING IN SHAPE

As the market for anti-obesity drugs in India grows rapidly, pharma majors like Dr. Reddy's, Zydus, and Sun Pharma are competing to quickly enter the market with weight-loss drugs

- NEETU CHANDRA SHARMA

INDIAN PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES are hungry for the next frontier: drugs to fight obesity, a condition that has become the biggest worry for the urban well-off as they gorge on calorie-dense food (read: junk and fast food) and lead unhealthy lifestyles.

Anti-obesity drugs are big business in the West, where obesity has reached epic proportions (according to the Global Obesity Observatory, 36.47 per cent of the US adult population is obese). As well-travelled Indians bring back the pills, Indian companies have scoped the business and want a share of the action.

Indian pharma companies already have a spectrum of drugs to tackle diabetes and a clutch of other medical conditions that are linked to obesity. But they are looking at specific pills to fight obesity as people want such pills from their doctor. “There has been a perceptible trend… among upper-income group obese patients who have connections in other countries where these drugs are accessible,” says Dr Anoop Misra, Chairman, Fortis C-DOC Hospital. “Many of these individuals have received recommendations for these drugs from relatives residing in Western countries, where such medications are widely used,” says Misra who is also the Director at National Diabetes, Obesity & Cholesterol Foundation.

Indians are not giving up on the usual tools such as diet and exercise to control weight. But these tools don’t work so well for the obese. Note: All obese people are overweight, but not all overweight people are obese. If you are the average Indian at 5 feet 6 inches tall (So says online data platform Statista, quoting a 2019 survey), and weigh 70 kg, you have just entered the overweight class (body mass index or BMI of 25.3). If you are 115 kg and above at that height, you are obese. 

THE BIG SHOTS